Zee Mission RZ
by Worstcase
Summary: A Captain, three minions and one mission, what could possibly go wrong? Been a while since I wrote some fanfiction and first time it's for RA. I hope you'll enjoy it nevertheless. Disclaimer: The RA characters obviously don't belong to me. Some mild swearing, and well, genre is Horror after all.
1. Chapter 1

Mr. Snippy sighed. He wasn't sure how after all this time in Captain's glorious army it was still possible for him to be surprised. And yet, once more the whole situation had taken him completely unprepared.

It had all started earlier today, when Pilot, Engie and Snippy had been sitting around what they called their breakfast table. Gromov was hiding himself and whatever he was eating behind an ancient piece of newspaper, Snippy was trying to decide, whether he should spice his bowl of water and cereals with some milk powder and Pilot was busy crafting a blob of peanut butter into a shape roughly resembling a mutated worm monster like Photoshop. That was when the Captain entered the room, announcing: "Minions! Finish your meals! Your Captain has today's mission for you!"

They all reacted differently: Snippy almost choked on a spoon full of cereals, Pilot jumped from his chair and saluted while hastily shoveling the whole piece of peanut butter art into his mouth and smearing half of it over his own face and Engie folded the top half of his newspaper down, casting an angry stare at their commander.

"Minions!" Captain continued "It eez time to expand this amazing army of mein. So find me a new recruit!"

"Here?" was all Snippy had asked. They had only recently moved into this new area. The good news about this place were the pleasantly low radiation levels, the bad news was, that it was located in a depression filled with toxic gas like that damn bowl in front of him was filled with soggy, uneaten breakfast cereals. Their new headquarter was on the highest floor of a ruined skyscraper, where they at least could remove their respirators for a few minutes (after almost dying from climbing up ten thousands of stairs). And since they had moved in here, they hadn't seen a single living being. There weren't even rats to hunt in an area as toxic as this one.

"I highly doubt there are any humans living around in the neighborhood, Captain."

"Of course I am aware of zat, Mr. Snippy. My orders were not to fetch me a living human mein silly minion, I only said a ‚new recruit', you need to read between the lines."

"Wait! Wait!" Engie interrupted before Snippy could answer anything to that. "You want us to recruit more of those mutated monsters out there? Not that we have seen any of those either..."

Pilot, who hadn't looked too happy about the whole ‚new recruit' mission cheered visibly up on the thought of mutated monsters "We could find a new friend for Photoshop! And then they could play tug of war with Snippy playing the part of the rope!"

"Warmer, meine minions, but not exactly what I had in mind." Captain made a dramatic pause...

"I want you to recruit me a zombie!"

And so Snippy, Pilot and Engie had spent the first half of the new day wandering through the ruins of the city, searching for an undead willing to join their ranks.

While Pilot was zooming around happily, chatting up to some unresponsive skeletons, Snippy and Engie were discussing their slightly more realistic options.

"Do you think we can trick Captain by dragging a skeleton back to the base? We could tell him that the new undead minion is just ... sleeping... or something." the engineer suggested.

"He wouldn't buy it even if we were attaching strings to it to move it around, even Captain isn't that dumb. But how about you giving a skeleton some robotic parts? cyber-zombies are your speciality after all, Gromov."

Engie cast a rather poisonous gaze at the sniper. The ANNET frying everybodys' brains was Captain's fault! He spilled his tea over her server banks!"

"All ANNET-users were already braindead zombies before that incident, Gromov." Snippy snapped back. Both of them stopped walking, as they went into a match of angry staring. They were interrupted though, by Pilot shouting:

"Found oURGH!"

Snippy pulled his rifle of his shoulder, going into a sprint towards where Pilot's voice had come from, leaving Engie no choice but to follow behind. Snippy looked around, and saw a grey shape dodging into the entrance of the nearest building from the corner of his eye. The sniper cursed under his breath, aimed his rifle, but the thing was already out of sight. Whatever it was it had definately not been Pilot. So there was indeed something in the toxic area besides them. Snippy had been careless, assuming only their crazy commander would consider living in a place this poisonous was a good idea.

"Pilot where are you?" Engie shouted and Snippy flinched a bit.

-Leave it to Gromov to make lot's of noise, when you don't know how many enemies or monsters are around.- he thought.

"I'm here!" Pilot suddenly reappeared by jumping out of a pit right in front of them.

"I saw him! A real zombie! He was digging himself out of his own grave!" Pilot cheered.

Indeed somebody had dug a pit there, probably deep enough to bury a car in it. A shovel was lying in the hole and an abandoned wheel barrow, half filled with soil, was standing nearby.

"This doesn't look exactly like a graveyard, Pilot. I doubt there are people buried under the sidewalk." Engie remarked dryly.

"People can be buried anywhere: On graveyards, in the sea, in the foundation of buildings, in the walls, under floorboards, in the basement..." Pilot happily listed the possibilities.

"Just where do you get those ideas, Pilot? No! On second thought, I don't actually want to know!" Snippy sighed. And he could have sworn, that Pilot muttered something about "sea didn't work" under his breath.

"So what actually just happened?" Engie inquired.

"I spotted the zombie and would have totally caught him but then he threw a fist full of dirt into my face and dodged me, when I jumped at him. Where did he go?" Pilot inquired, following Snippy's gaze towards the building.

"Stay here and don't get in my way, you jiggly slugs! I saw him first!" and with that Pilot dashed after the zombie into the building.

"Maybe we are lucky and the ‚zombie' eats him." Engie stated. "This is so silly."

"We better hurry up and follow him. Even if it's not a zombie it might be dangerous." Snippy responded, following Pilot to the building with low enthusiasm.

"What do you mean with ‚if'? There is no such unscientific things as zombies!"

"Cancer."Snippy replied laconically.

"That was something entirely different , and you know it."

They continued bickering until they reached the dark doorway. Both of them cast a careful look inside. Some old and broken furniture, disturbed dust, more darkness. Pilot had obviously trampled all usefull tracks in his haste to be the first one to catch his Captain a zombie and he wasn't exactly subtle with his search, either. From deep within the building Snippy and Engie could hear more furniture breaking and Pilot shouting nonsense about ‚collecting rotten boots for the army'.

"I bet whatever it was it is long gone now. This place probably has a backdoor or at least some windows facing in the other direction and Pilot creates enough noise to wake the dead." Snippy sighed. But Engie had his head tilted and listened to a faint noise coming from a different source.

"I wouldn't count on that, Charles" he wispered, finally taking a step into the building. He crossed the room as silently as he was able to manage and carefully listened at one of the doors leading deeper into the building. The engineer waved for the sniper to follow him. Snippy readied his rifle, took position beside the door and nodded. Engie pushed the door open, dodging back at once, so the sniper would have a free line o fire.

Nothing.

Engie curiosly looked into the room just as Snippy did. The place looked disappointingly empty. Obviously Pilot had been in here already. He had opened the wardrobe pulled out all items of moth eaten clothing and scattered them all over the floor. He had ripped of the curtains, toppled over a bookshelf and judging by the tracks left in the dust, Pilot had looked under the bed as well. And yet, for some reason Snippy had the disturbing feeling, that this room wasn't as abandoned as it seemed to be. He could hear it too now: A scratching noise coming somewhere from the far wall. Curiosity won the better of Engie and he carefully stepped over the rotten books and half dissolved laundry, finally pressing an ear to the wall.

"I guess it's just a nest of rats." He wispered, listening intently.

"Yeah, probab... no wait! There aren't any rats in...

The wall cracked open with a sick crunching noise. Dried bones, mixed with wooden splinters made clicking noises while spilling from the hole onto the floor. A dusty gloved hand with long, claw like fingers had punched through the wall just an inch away from Gromov's face, grabbing the engineer's collar.

Then three things happened all at once:

Engie screamed like a horror movie actress from the sixties.

Snippy aimed at the thing coming from of the crack in the wall, pulled the trigger and...

...sombody pushed the sniper's rifle to the side.

The shot rang through the room, missing it's mark by more than just a few inches.

"I told you to recruit me a zombie not to shoot it, mein silly minion!"

"Captain?" Snippy asked in disbelieve. As so often their commanding officer had snuck up on him. As Captain let go of the barrel of Snippy's rifle he continued: "You really need to listen to my orders more carefully mein sniper, but enough of zat, let me see what you have found for me."

"I found it first, Captain, not that silly shoe! He was just trying to shoot it because he was jealous of my discovery!" Pilot appeared behind Captain, pointing an accusing finger at the sniper.

"Bwah? I only shot because it attacked Gromov!" Snippy protested.

"Stop that and help me! It's trying to pull me in!" Engie shouted, flailing around and trying to shake off the zombie's grip. Snippy raised his rifle again but the creature just let go of the engineer all of a sudden. Gromov completely out of balance fell on his back rather inelegantly. The zombie in the meantime managed to somehow squeeze its whole body out of the hole until it finally stood in the room with them. Behind it, two more skeletons collapsed out of the crack, falling into pieces upon hitting the carpet.

"So walls don't work either to get rid of old shoes. Good to know." Pilot muttered. But Snippy's attention was fixed on the zombie. The figure in front of them was covered up by a long, half shredded and dusty grey cloak. Snippy got a glimpse of black pants and grey boots. There wasn't much else to be seen than a rather odd looking gasmask with two tubes disappearing to somwhere under the grey hood. Despite being rather tall the figure seemed to be hunched over, an impression amplified by something the zombie seemed to be carrying on it's back under the cloak. A hidden backpack maybe? The zombie almost appeared human, aside from... and Snippy realized how crazy that sounded... aside from the goggles. They were dark grey, dull and well .. lifeless?

Currently those dark lenses were fixed on Captain, who had stepped forward to adress the figure:

"You are the most lucky little zombie! For I zee Captain am currently recruiting for zee undead part of the most delicious army of Captania. You heard what I was telling you? My other minions seem to have problems with zat today."

The zombie hesitated a moment and then finally nodded.

"Very well, so at least your ears haven't rotten off, yet. How about speaking?"

"... gl... gr...sst.. rk..." after a few attempts the zombie finally gave up and shook it's head.

"Hmmm... that wont do! My zombie minions must at least be able to mutter ‚brains'! Zee Captein demands you to say ‚brains'! And make that a menacing one!"

The zombie hesitated for another moment and finally tried.

"Br... bre...BrAInNSssSSS..."

"Bwah?!" Snippy's hands clenched around his rifle, and Engie who was almost back on his feet stumbled backwards and fell down again. Even Pilot hat instinctively reached for his weapon.

The zombie seemed even more surprised then them though, inquiring carefully:

" Brainsss?"

Captain clapped his hands: "Zat was perfect!" Zee Captain approves of this display of menacing muttering. Then all that is left to do is finding out whether you are able to accomplish zee Captain's missions, liddle Zombie. Here take zat."

With that the Captain handed a piece of paper to the zombie.

"Zee Captain wants you to fetch him zis. But since this is your very first mission..." the Captain pondered for a moment, looking through the room at his other minions.

And this was the reason, why Mr. Snippy was now standing in the middle of the road, to escort a zombie on the very important mission to rescue princess Peach.


	2. Chapter 2

**Zee mission SPP:**

**Try again next castle!**

The day hadn't started out great and there was no reason, why it should get better any time soon. Actually the same could be said about Snippy's whole life, before and after the apocalypse. And as if living in a radioactive wasteland wasn't bad enough already, he had to do it in the possibly worst company ever. Captain with his insane, hazardous missions, Pilot always looking for a method to get rid of Snippy and last but not least Engie the man, who had singlehandedly made his life miserable before the end of the world and _then_ caused the apocalypse.

And now a zombie?

Seriously?

But on the other hand: Was this guy actually a real zombie? Asking had only produced a shrug from the strange fellow.

Did he honestly not know?

How was that even possible?

As they walked down the streets between the ruined buildings, the sniper cast another look at the silent figure scuffling alongside him.

- Damn he even walks like an undead!

But on the other hand he has a gasmask. If he needs to breath, he must still be alive, right?-

Snippy continued to ponder until they reached a huge crossroad, where Zombie suddenly stopped moving and looked around.

"Hey? What's the matter?"

As an answer Zombie showed Captain's shoppinglist to him again.

"Well? I know we're supposed to look for princess Peach, what's new?" the sniper inquired, before the zombie turned the paper around and Snippy could see, that there was another note on the backside in the familiar, terrible handwriting of his commander:

"Minions! Any encountered trafficlights shall be destroyed! NO PRISONERS!"

Snippy looked up from the note and around, they _were_ standinding at a huge crossroad...

"Awww, no..." he sighed.

Lot's of thrown rocks and splintered, three colored glass later, they were back to their main quest. But thanks to Captain's surefire way to make any rediculous mission even more complicated they had lost so much time, that Snippy was sure they wouldn't make it back to the base before nightfall.

-And isn't that just a lovely outlook? Staying out in the wasteland, alone in the dark with a guy, who might or might not be a zombie and doesn't know the difference anyway?

Hell no!

And if it takes the whole night to walk back to the base!-

But before he could even think about returning, the sniper would have to make sure, that Zombie somehow completed his mission, which seemed more and more unlikely to him at the current state of affairs.

And while they were searching for their target in a decayed shopping street, Snippy came slowly to the conclusion, that the zombie indeed didn't have a hint of a clue, what they were actually looking for.

First they had inspected a small supermarket, where Snippy discovered a few cans of food – at least the day hadn't been a complete waste of time. Of course there was not a trace of princess Peach.

Their next stop was a toystore. It had looked promising but again no princess Peach. Instead the sniper stumbled over an intact chemistry kit for kids. Had he believed in gods, he would surely have thanked them for letting him find it before Captain or Pilot got their hands on it - Snippy made sure to dispose of it inconspicuously.

From there on the locations they visited made less and less sense. A bookstore, a flowershop, a home improvement store, then a hairdresser - of course without any results. And while Snippy was giving up looking through the mostly empty shelves of an abandoned electronics store, he was sure hoping, that the damn princess would finally be in the next place.

"I think we left no stone unturned in most of the shops here already, is there any place we haven't looked, yet, Zombie?"

...

"Zombie?"

This was when Snippy noticed, that the other wasn't around anymore. The zombie had been so quiet the whole time, that the sniper hadn't even noticed him slipping away.

"Damn! I don't want to think how unamused Captain will be, if I manage to loose his new zombie minion just like this." Snippy cursed under his breath, when he stepped over a broken flatscreen towards the exit.

But what he saw out on the street made his blood freeze.

Zombie had been searching through the contents of a broken display window of a shop once selling sports equipment. He was still standing there, completely motionless as there was a second larger shape slowly circling around him. It seemed the zombie had accidentally rousted a beast.

Snippy had seen those before, double as huge as bears with misshaped heads and claws so sharp they could easily cut through bones. This one looked kind of wrong though. The fur was hanging at it's body in an odd way, as if it had been meant for an even larger monster. The remains of a shoe with shoelaces and all were still hanging between its fangs.

-It's starved!- the sniper realized. There was not enough prey for a predator of this size in the toxic area, if any at all. The beast had probably been lost for days or even weeks not finding its way back to its former hunting grounds, wandering around until it came upon that store. Sports outfits had many leather parts, balls and shoes were mostly made of the same or similar materials so it had probably been feasting on those without actually being able to satiate its hunger. Until it had been disturbed by the silent figure now standing in front of it.

The sniper carefully aimed his rifle but he was very well aware that he couldn't shoot like this. It was impossible to kill a beast of this size with only a single bullet, even if he hit the heart or an eye it would take a few minutes to die. And in that time, it would certainly rip Zombie's head off with it's claws.

On the other hand: Why hadn't it done so already? The zombie was standing right there in plain sight.

The beast seemed ... uncertain?

Suddenly the monster's head flicked around, now staring directly at Snippy.

And with a low growl it turned its whole massive body and came dashing at its new prey.

"Bwah?"

-You gotta be kidding me? He is less appetizing than a tennis shoe but of course _I_ am looking delicious?-

Snippy fired, fired again and tried to dodge back into the electronics shop behind him. Too slow, the paw of the now fatally wounded beast pushed into him and he could feel the claws scraping over his gasmask before he stumbled backwarts into one of the shelves.

The impact knocked the air out of his lungs and Snippy instinctively inhaled.

He realized what a bad mistake that had been even before he heard his respirator clattering over concrete somewhere in the darkness between the shelves. The claws had easily cut through the straps holding his mask in place. Now the toxic air was burning in his throat and in his lungs.

Snippy desperately held his breath and fought the urge to cough and with that inhale even more of the poison.

The dying beast was still trashing around near the entrance and the sniper briefly wondered what had happened to the zombie. Was he still there? Had he run away?

But that would have to wait, Snippy needed his respirator back: Now!

Where had it fallen? The Sniper was crawling through the rubble, his vision getting blurry. Falling unconscious now would mean sure death.

Aside from the blood rushing in his ears the world had suddenly gone quiet, the monster had finally fallen silent.

A shadow blocked the light from the entrance, hasty steps were shuffeling through the rubble.

Zombie?

Snippy saw the grey figure aproaching, then everything went black.

"What is this boobery Mr. Snippy? Why are you sleeping in a place like this?"

"He looks like a drunken shoe on monday morning that jiggly slug!"

"Gwah? Captain? Pilot?" Snippy opened his eyes, tried to get up and almost fell out of the wheelbarrow, he was lying in.

"Where am I? What happened?" he asked groggily.

"About the where: Right in front of our base, Charles. You were gone quite long. It's dark already and so we were just about to go looking, what was keeping you. Just to find you sleeping here like this. Hell for a moment I actually thought you were dead. And about the what: We wanted to ask you the same." Engie explained.

Yes, what had happened, shouldn't he be dead?

Snippy had lost his respirator, now it was back covering his face and doing its duty. His throat was still burning a bit but it wasn't too bad anymore. The backpack with the supplies he had collected was leaning to the next wall, as was his rifle both looked intact. But something else was missing... or rather someone.

"Where is zee zombie, Mr. Snippy? Before it reports back to me on zee mission, it can not become an official minion of mein." Captain inquired.

"Don't know, he must have been here just a moment ago, maybe he decided to head out again to continue searching for that princess Peach, since we weren't able to complete that stupid quest of yours."

"No, mein sniper, zee mission was actually a complete success." with this the Captain held up a can of preserved fruits he had picked up from the wheelbarrow. The label read:

'Royal Peaches'.

"Zee princess is rescued, her whole family assembled, zee kingdom is safe once more. You took too long for zee mission, though."

"Hello? We were attacked by a monster!"

"Was it a giant turtle?"

"What? No!"

"Then it doesn't count! Let's get back in, meine minions. Your Captain has to think about fun new missions for you for tomorrow."

They followed him.

Two out of three minions were groaning.

Later that night, Snippy and Engie were sitting back at the table in their hideout. The sniper was replacing the broken straps of his respirator.

"I can't believe he actually taped the gasmask back to my face! What was that zombie thinking?" Snippy glared angrily at the loose strips of ducktape now lying on the table.

"Well looks like it worked, you are still alive, Charles. So you shouldn't complain about some lost hair. And at least he didn't use super glue instead." Engie remarked with a grin.

"By the way I highly doubt that guy was a real zombie, you see, while the two of you were out, I inspected that place, where we found him. Looks like he somehow broke through some rotten floorboards from the level above, when running away from Pilot and ended up stuck behind that wall. He was lucky, that those wallboards weren't in the best shape anymore either.

See? One riddle solved! Nothing mysterious behind it at all." Gromov explained proudly.

"And the other two skeletons? Why were those in there?" Snippy wanted to know.

"Hell! Do I look like a goddamn CSI-team to you, Charles? I have no idea, maybe they crashed down there together with him, maybe they've been in that wall since long before the apocalypse, who cares?

Rather tell me, what _you_ managed to find out about that zombie... guy... whatever. "

"A few things: His aim when throwing rocks was miserable, a monster didn't recognize him as prey, I think he gave me his gasmask, when I lost mine ... and just before I passed out...I could swear I saw only bones under that cape of his."

"Hey hey! Are you trying to scare me, Charles? That's completely impossible, you were probably halucinating from the toxic gas."

"Well how about this then? He must have searched for my lost respirator in the darkness, after giving his mask to me, how long do you think he could have possibly been holding his breath?"

"Maybe he found your mask at once, or he had a spare mask. Charles, be reasonable!"

Snippy sighed.

"Anyway, he was able to locate our base without me pointing him here, and..."

Snippy glanced at the can of 'Royal Peaches', that was now resting like a trophy on top of a sideboard, focusing his gaze on the pricetag, which was from the very same supermarket, they had visited first.

"... I don't think he can be trusted."


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning came, and wth it the new mission for the day:

"Snippy and Engie! Go look for Zombie, my minions! And Pilot will help me building a moat for the Royal Peach castle." obviously Captain hadn't given up on building his zombie army, yet, as Snippy had thought, and he made a mental note to check for water filled pits around the hideout, when returning later.

"Why looking for him? Don't stop a traveller I say. And if he wants to find that guy that bad, why can't Seven look for him himself." Engie's mood seemed to be even worse than usual today.

"If I didn't know you better, I might say you didn't sleep last night, Gromov, nightmares?" Snippy inquired.

"Well, why would I have nightmares of let's say zombies hunting me to consume my brain or something after all what happened yesterday, Charles?"

"Heh, well if it helps you, Zombie didn't seem to be interested into eating my brain, when he had the chance."

"That's not really comforting. Obviously you and the other morons wouldn't be in any danger since you don't have brains to be consumed to begin with. So any suggestions where we should look?"

"The one with the brain asking the brainless one for directions? Well I have a few ideas contrary to you. Let's start with that pit he was digging."

The pit was still where it had been yesterday, obviously. This time though the wheelbarrow and the shovel were gone. Snow had already begun to cover the soil that had frozen over night. There was no trace of anyone working here during the last hours. Snippy wasn't overly disappointed. It would have been far too easy anyway.

"Well, as expected. Next stop is the shopping street. If nothing else, there will be a few useful supplies."

"Absolutely thrilling." Was the only answer by the engineer.

The shopping street looked a lot like yesterday, snow was drifting through the empty display windows, the only difference was the huge cadaver lying in front of the electronics store and... Photoshop the Captain's and Pilot's mutated worm pet happily devouring what was left of the bloody mass that had once been a beast.

"Okayyy... We do NOT want to disturb her. Let's just stay out of her way." The engineer watched in morbid fascination as the shard like teeth rippped the meat apart.

"I was wondering where she had wandered off to. At least we don't have to feed her for a while. Too bad, though, I wanted to take a look at the dead monster. On the other hand as long as Photoshop is here, we don't need to worry about anything else ambushing us. She'll make hell of a noise if anything tries to sneak up on her and her meal."

So the marksman and the engineer checked the stores systematically for clues about Zombie's whereabouts. The first thing the sniper noticed was the half open door of the toystore – he was sure he had closed it after him before. He made a gesture for Engie to follow him. Their cautious investigation brought not much of a result though, somebody, probably Zombie had left some tracks in front of a shelve with small gimmicks. A few items had been put aside, obviously discarded. I were seals supposed to stamp funny animal pictures on paper.

"What could he want with one of those?" Snippy wondered.

Engie just shrugged.

The zombie seemed to have been very busy in the night. From the flowershop it had taken wrapping paper and a pack of Advent wreath candles.

The wheelbarrow which had been used to transport Snippy back to the base had come from the home improvement store, as well as the ducktape, it didn't look like Zombie had been back to the place since.

This wasn't true for the bookstore, though, as the mass of left open books and the half burned candles, broken pencils and torn wrapping paper arranged on the floor betrayed. The zombie had spent several hours in this place. Resting in the middle of the chaos was a small parcel.

Snippy hesitated for a moment, then he picked it up.

It was pretty light, felt like it contained something soft and had been neatly wrapped with paper from the flowershop and adhesive tape. Furthermore it had been sealed with wax from a red candle, the wax was showing the imprint of a grinning skull. An adress was scribbled: To the Captain, 4th and Maple ave., floor 13. As clarification a little portrait of the Captain had been drawn next to it.

In the meantime Gromov had inspected the books.

"'How to write buiseness letters', 'Modern language dictionary', 'Monsters manual', 'A history of pandemics'? What the hell?"

"Let's get this thing back to Captain, I don't think we'll find anything else here." The sniper stored the parcel away in his backpack and waved for the engineer to follow him.

"Are you joking? Don't you want to look inside that parcel first?"

"Hell no! Captain would probably show up out of the blue in the middle of me unwrapping it, besides I don't think I could reseal it without leaving a trace anyway. We'll find out what's inside soon enough I guess."

They found Captain and Pilot in front of the base. Pilot was making use of the wheelbarrow and moving dirt from the under construction moat around, while Captain was holding a deflated rubber crocodile, he had found somewhere.

"Ah! You're back in time minions! Engie repair that! It's loosing air." Captain shoved the rubber crocodile at him, then turned towards Snippy, looking at him expectantly.

"Here, I guess this is from Zombie for you." The marksman just handed over the sealed up bundle.

"For my eyes only? What could zis be? A love letter? A mail bomb? We shall see!"

Snippy doubted it was any of either, but said nothing as the Captain turned back into the base to inspect their finding.

Spending the afternoon making fun of Gromov, who was struggling with the inflatable crocodile, the sniper subdued his curiosity for the time being.

When the three minions finally went inside, they found their Captain sitting in his armchair sipping on his tea.

"And?" Snippy inquired.

"And what mein sniper?"

"What about the parcel, what about Zombie?"

"He eez sorry but he can't join our squad for now, so there eez no longer need for looking for him Mr. Snippy."

"And that is all there is?"

"He was worried about your health."

"... That is... Okay, forget it!"

...

...

Later that night, when the Captain had gone wandering around outside to inspect their progress on the moat, and Pilot and Engie were sleeping – the latter with the still deflated crocodile wrapped around him – Snippy went for answers.

Captain's room wasn't locked and actually all the contents of the mysterious parcel were lying out in the open on the table.

First thing was a piece of shrink-wrapped black cloth. A sticky note attached to it, as well as a 'Property of Captein' note.

The sticky one read:

"I only found your message attached to my back, when I checked my air-tanks. I'm not sure why you want my old t-shirt, but if you don't mind, take my spare one instead, it's the same design and size. "

- Air-tanks? Then that isn't a gas mask but an oxygenmask he's wearing? – Snippy wodered briefly. And tanks in plural? If he had two, it was possible to use one separately for searching for the lost gas mask, without fearing to run out of air.

And a t-shirt? The shirt in it's plastic folder had a peculiar design.

- I knew it! I saw bones before passing out. He was wearing a ribcage t-shirt! Who would have thought of that? So he is indeed not a real zombie, just some creepy fellow with a strange taste in fashion. No surprise if Captain was disappointed. -

But was that the only reason no longer to look for Zombie? From what Captain had said earlier there should be... Ah yes, there it was a full lenght letter.

"Dear Captain,

I am truely sorry to have to give you a negative answer upon the matter of recruiting me for the amazing army of Captania. Please excuse my former ignorance concerning the bakground and purpose of zombie units, I am not sure as of why the term was unknown to me but my vocabulary seems to be lacking at times. I made sure to gather the necessary information about by now. My reasons for declining your kind offer are connected to those new informations and are the following:

I am not sure I am a zombie at all, what would defeat the whole purpose of recruiting me as a zombie unit. Some of the described syptoms of zombification fit me, some don't. So I'll try to have my status confirmed before enlisting.

Second I endangered the life of the supporting sniper unit, by needlessly delaying completion of the mission. I may not be made to fit well into a team, if I can't ensure my coworkers personal safety.

Third I couldn't help but notice that your squad is reaching a critical count of crewmembers already. From my observation of groups of human survivors, I found that groups consisting of more than six people have trouble finding enough food in most areas. As long as there is no replenish-able source of food available for you, I can only advise against recruiting me - especially since your sniper unit shows signs of malnourishment already.

The last reason is concerning, what information I was able to gather about zombies in the short time at hand. While I still don't know what 'necromancy' and 'vodoo' are supposed to be I can't exclude a pandemic virus to be the cause of my current condition. I might be highly contagious, if so I am a high risk for your and your squad's health and/or lives. This alone should be reason enough for me to stay away from your squad until my condition has been validated as no risk for your wellbeing.

I hope next time we meet I have more information and we can become... what is the word for 'not enemies'? The dictionary suggests 'allies' but I'm not entirely sure that is the word I was looking for.

Your's sincerely

Unit: Igor GD, EE-department, known to you as Zombie.

PS.: I had to give my oxygenmask to your sniper unit for a while, since I don't know how contagious I actually am, keep an eye on him for any symptoms. Should his blood turn black and his eyes milky within a week, please tell him I'm sorry."


End file.
